Symposium “Valency Grammar and Biblical Languages”
A symposium was organized on the 4th and 5th of April by the ETF Leuven, Noster, and the Netherlands-Flemish Bible Society in Leuven on the topic of valency grammar in the Biblical languages. The event featured a comprehensive discussion of the history of the research...
Recent developments in the computational analysis of the Bible
By Samuel Swire and Thijs Amersfoort In his article Computational Linguistic Analysis of the Biblical Text Willem van Peursen gave an overview of the development of the computational analysis of the Bible from its early beginnings through 2022. Since then, the...
Digitizing and Annotating the Syriac Versions of the Old Testament
At the International Meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature, Amsterdam, 29 July –1 August 2024, the Peshitta Institute Progress report was read. Part of this report was an update of our projects related to the Peshitta and Digital Humanities. That part of the...
Exciting projects at the Digital Approaches to Sacred Texts (DAST) research group
Since the 1970s the Werkgroep Informatica Vrije Univesiteit, which in 2013 was rebaptized the Eep Talstra Centre for Bible and Computer (ETCBC) has been involved in the computational analysis of the Bible and other religious texts. In the course of time it has...
When Religion Meets Technology: A Dive into Day 2 of the Hackathon “Live-mapping Religious Difference Online”
Picture this: a room buzzing with energy, pizza boxes stacked high, soft drinks at every table, rapid Wi-Fi connectivity, and scholars engrossed in their laptops, training AI models. It might not be the first image that springs to mind when you think of theologians...
Ethically Text-Mining social media: Bridging Innovation, Responsibility, and Collaboration
In October 2023, the Faculty of Religion and Theology at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam organized two hackathon events for the Network Institute Research Visit project, titled "Live-mapping Religious Difference Online." This project explores the interaction between...
Two Hackathon events
Live-mapping Religious Difference Online The interplay of Digital Society, religious texts mediated online, and live-mapping What is the feasibility of live-mapping the differential use of religious texts in social media to identify religious issues present across...
Studying Syriac manuscripts in Minnesota
By Geert Jan Veldman MA, Zwolle It happened often in conversations in the more southern parts of the United States of America, that a conversation partner asked me something like “Why on earth you want to visit one of the coldest parts of mainland USA?”, when I...
In Memoriam: James K. Aitken (1968-2023)
By Srecko Koralija It was with great sadness that I received the news that on Friday the 7th of April my PhD supervisor and professor James Aitken passed away after his second major heart attack. He was widely recognized as an outstanding scholar. He studied at the...
Could robots be religious?
On 12 December 2022 the Faculty of Religion and Theology of the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and the research institute and CLUE+ organized a workshop centered around the provocative question: could robots be religious? The timing couldn’t be more appropriate: about...
